October 2005

  Pont Valentre, Cahors, Lot

 Le Pont Valentré, Cahors, Lot

 
e-newsletter
Edited by Roger Macdonald, the Guild of Travel Writers'
only listed expert on villa holidays
 
 
Welcome

The more you know about what is happening in France, the better your holiday. Each month we bring you a selection of news, views and attractive events from across the Channel. Plan your next trip to make the most of those occasions when the French are en fête. And take advantage of our VIlla Club reductions for your 2006 holiday.		   Walnut trees, Dordogne
  Walnut trees, Dordogne
 
 

News & Features

Vive le sport?

L'Equipe

The United Kingdom daily newspapers outsell the best selling newspapers in by up to 10 to 1 but while there is no room on the British side of the channel for a sports daily, in France a sports newspaper reigns supreme.

The French daily sports paper, L’Equipe, meaning « the team », sold an average number of 343,567 copies in the year to June 2005, beating le Figaro (326,690) and le Monde (324,401).  By comparison, the sole British sports paper, a weekly called Sport First, sells only 14,289 copies and its circulation has plummeted by exactly one-third in the past twelve months.

Find out more >>   

Appelation Yankee?

GM vine crops

Few people are aware that the origins, or at any rate the roots, of the French wine industry came from the United States towards the end of the nineteenth century. French vineyards had been almost destroyed by a sap-sucking insect, the grape phylloxera, which was carried accidentally by ship from North America and spread remorselessly. As soon as it became apparent that only the embryonic American vines were resistant to the voracious insect, French vineyards were given a dramatic and secret makeover. American plants had European grapevines grafted on them, and the same strain has been used surreptitiously ever since.

Find out more >>

 

Books in bulk

Houellebecq book cover

French publishers do not believe in selling titles by attrition or stealth. Each September just about every book remotely marketable is rolled out to the bookshops: 633 new titles this year alone, in a ritual known as la rentrée littéraire.

It is a nightmare for PR directors because of the impossibility of promoting simultaneously such a quantity of books. Many fail to be displayed in bookshops at all, let alone reviewed, and end up quietly pulped. No one can explain how this state of affairs has arisen: only 300 books, more than enough even then, were released in September five years ago.

Find out more >>  

 

The three Musketeers ride again across the pages of real history

The Man in the Iron Mask

Our very own newsletter and e-newsletter editor, Roger Macdonald, has uncovered the true story of the French King's Musketeers and their connection with the Man in the Iron Mask. It is a reality more extraordinary than any tale that Alexandre Dumas could devise. Honour and heroism, betrayal and intrigue, are set amidst the lust, jealousy and deadly poisons that made the court of Louis XIV a world of frenzied paranoia. The sensational secret of the identity of the Iron Mask is revealed at last.

Find out more about this special book offer >> 

 

 

  
 

Forthcoming Events

Bordeaux e-newsletter

INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF WOMEN IN CINEMA - Bordeaux, Gironde
3-9 October 2005
It may not yet be on a par with the Cannes Film Festival but the international festival to celebrate the work of women, both in front of but especially behind the camera, is growing fast. In this its seventh season, it will be announcing the winners of two internationally-recognised awards and will be showing more than sixty films not previously accessible to cinema enthusiasts. 
Find out more >>            View our villas in this area >>

Pays de Fayence e-newsletter

STRING ALONG WITH US in Fayence country, Provence
21-28 October 2005
The villages of Fayence country, most nestling in the foothills behind the French Riviera, come together each year to demonstrate their talent with the violin. These villages, Fayence, Seillans, Mons, Montauroux, Bagnols-en-Forêt, Tourrettes, Callian and the town of Saint-Raphaël, an honourable member, each have a string quartet whose members play professionally, though except in this particular week, not necessarily with one another.
Find out more >>            View villas in this area >>

At war

PRIX BAYEUX FOR WAR CORRESPONDENTS - Calvados, Normandy
3-8 October 2005
Don't be surprised if Bayeux is full of shabilly-dressed men, and exceptionally well-dressed women, hanging around bars, chain smoking and tossing back the local apple brandy as though it were lemonade. They are the finalists, good losers, poor losers and friends, here for the annual awards to war corresondents.
Find out more >>            View villas in this area >>

Nyons e-newsletter

DEFINITELY IN GOOD TASTE - Nyons festival, Drôme, Provence
8-16 October 2005
Become your own brewer at the Brasserie Artisanale du Sud, the newest event in a gluttony of tasting of food and drink that takes place in the centre of town and all around the land of the Olives. The apprentice brewers will be shown how to carry out the fermentation process and, about four weeks later, the results of their efforts will be presented to them specially labelled and bottled.
Find out more >>            View villas in this area >>
 
 
     
 
Enjoy up to 7.5% off your next villa holiday

If you* travelled with us in 2004 and/or 2005 you are entitled to the following financial benefits:

  • A reduction of 5% on your 2005 or 2006 booking.
  • Plus another 2.5% if you make a booking for any time now until the end of November 2005 or if your first 2006 booking does not include the period between 1 July and 26 August 2006
  • A 5% reduction will apply as well to a second booking taken in any one season

* You qualify if you were a member of a party, not necessarily the person who booked

Reductions apply to the villa portion only of the holiday 		 
   
AITO
AITO Dominique's Villas , The Plough Brewery, 516 Wandsworth Road, London, SW8 3JX, UK
Tel: 00 44 (0) 20 7738 8772 Fax: 00 44 (0) 20 7498 6014 Email info@dominiquesvillas.co.uk

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